


Pregnant

by LePetitChouNerd



Category: Mass Effect: Andromeda
Genre: Angst, Cheating, F/M, Pregnancy, Running Away, Unwanted Pregnancy, rekindling past relationship, this is gonna hurt throughout, unhappy engagement
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-14
Updated: 2017-11-25
Packaged: 2018-10-31 19:15:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10905729
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LePetitChouNerd/pseuds/LePetitChouNerd
Summary: Marriage. Babies. Happily ever after. That’s how it went, right? Maybe for some. But for Sarianna, some of that happiness was left behind. A small piece of it was still with him, and nothing - not even her own wedding and baby on the way - would stop her from seeing him gain.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This takes place ten years after the final events of the game.

There was no mistaking the seemingly harmless plus sign blinking on the stick. Sara was pregnant. There, at the bottom of her sink, the stick kept on blinking what should be nothing more than a sick, practical joke. Yet nobody popped from the compact storage closet next to her in impish glee. Neither did a soul peep from the bathroom door to yell, “Surprise! We fooled you!” She leaned over the counter, head sunk low into her shoulders, in dejected shock and wholly unable to even face the tired woman standing before her in the mirror. Besides, the almost clinical pallor of the bathroom light had a nauseating effect, like a tightness in her throat threatening to spew at any given moment.

Three well-meaning knocks thudded from outside the door. “Hon, you okay?” Loving fiancee and partner of three years, prim and proper Geoffrey was no doubt awaiting his turn. They had a busy day, after all, and dealing with an unplanned bastard in the making was not on the itinerary.

“Yes! Everything’s fine!” she yelled. Sara grappled with the unholy stick as it bounced around the sink in her inept rush. _Shit._ Her hand finally won, and it wasn’t long before she disposed of it with an unseemly contempt into the small, almost aesthetically pleasing roundness of their wastebin. She made sure to plop a few sheets of toilet paper over it for good measure. “You can come in!” The door slid open the moment the faucet hissed with a pressurized stream of running water. Sara diligently made as if she had been washing her hands.

A rather sleepy Geoffrey, his normally coiffed hair tousled in bedridden weariness, stepped into the light with a rather unflattering and squinty expression. Yawning, he inched behind Sara and placed a rather doting kiss on the back of her neck as he reached for his tooth brush. His other hand found its way to her waist in a rather backwards embrace. “Good morning to the most beautiful woman in Heleus.” The superlative was followed by a languid smile, somewhat short and saccharine for an otherwise mundane ritual before cleaning one’s teeth.

“Just Heleus?” she teased with a suspecting eyebrow. They both laughed, Geoffrey knowing in his heart that she was the most beautiful even outside Heleus (the entire universe, for that matter); and Sara not knowing why and how to juggle about the daily antics of domestic life while silently panicking at the news she scarcely had time to process. Her thoughts raced to the still blinking stick hiding under a heap in their wastebin. “What are you gonna wear?” She wiped her hands dry with the lush cotton hand towels dangling from from a sleek platinum ring next to the mirror.

Geoffrey looked at her from the mirror, toothbrush jammed into his mouth in a sidelined battle against germs and plaque. “I was thinking that suit Tann had tailored for me. Authentic cotton grown from Podromos.” Sara would’ve judged that he was grinning too widely given the occasion, but she couldn’t fault him for it, especially when he could have been just as easily widening his mouth for the necessary work of moving his toothbrush from one side to the other.

“Fancy,” she said in a low whistle. In truth, Sara hated anything that screamed so… luxuriously. To some, ten years wasn’t a very long time. Many, the ex-Pathfinder included, still remember the harsh pangs of hunger, the measly parcels of rationed food and water, and the overall hopelessness of a people resigned to the little that life dealt them. The choice of touting a retrofitted outfit made of the finest and rarest of fabrics would’ve added insult to a still healing injury.

But looking at Geoffrey, at his rather well kept shadow of a beard (the facial hair style of the month, apparently), his chiseled nose, and defined jaws, Sara realized that not all remembered the same, especially when, like her fiancee, some had the fortune to be dreaming rather peacefully in that hour of need. Geoffrey never knew need. He knew nothing but expenditure, and their rather sleek life in a prime real estate apartment on Meridian was proof of it.

“Listen, I’m going to run some errands. We have a couple of hours anyway.” She hovered next to the door as if waiting for that sure sign of approval.

Geoffrey gargled and spat into the sink. He splashed water onto his face and let the ivory foam meld in a swirl in the running water. “Just be back in time. You know how I hate being late.” He ended his concern with a rather indifferent shrug. A mere reminder is all one needed in life, after all.

Sara laughed. “Sure thing.” Her foot was almost out the door.

“Hey!”

Her foot paused mid-air as she hung by the thread of his words.

“Aren’t you forgetting something?” His head bobbed to the side. On the counter, tucked away on that marbled corner, glimmered a golden band with nothing save a sparking diamond for decoration.

His trophy wife-to-be grinned in sheepish bemusement. “You’re right.” Without skipping a beat, Sara swiped a hand at the counter and grabbed her engagement ring. She slipped it on, lithe finger in full view as Geoffrey watched from the mirror. And when he garnished the moment with his own satisfied smile, Sara planted a delicate, dutiful kiss on his stubbly cheek. “I”ll see you later.”

She barely heard him shout “Love you!” as she spirited away from the door.

* * *

The almost harsh ringing, incessant as it was as it screeched through her omnitool was filling Sara with dread. _C’mon Scott…_ The line continued, yet no answer gave her a reprieve from the monotonous beeping of a call that was yet to be answered. It took only a few clicks, and she was once more redirected to his voice mail. “Hey, Scott Ryder here. Busy at the moment, but hit me up by the *BEEEEP*.” Sara hung up before the call could record any further.

 _Shit._ Dread was coiling in tight, stifling knots in her stomach. And it was just her luck that her normally available twin brother was somehow unreachable at that very moment.

Vetra? No, she’d be in the Remav right now still rooting out derelict mines.

Liam? Cora? But both would be gone with Scott as part of the new and rebranded Pathfinder team, seeking out more exploits in neighboring clusters. A bitter note seemed to ring just saying it out loud. New. Pathfinder team. Many didn’t think of Scott filling in for Sara as some kind of affront, but in a way, she did. Complications with cerebral lesions be damned, she didn’t want to have to be replaced - least of all by a brother who somehow came out less damaged than she.

The list moved on. Jaal maintained work with the Resistance as one of its three generals. Though in truth, she suspected he’d be the most pleased with news of her untimely conception. Suvi, on the other hand, was much too far on the Nexus and no doubt stressed enough as it was with her new pet project - classified, unfortunately (one of the many channels Sara was no longer privy too). There was Gil, who parented as best he could from Podromos, and Kallo was on the Nexus training more pilots now that Scott had paved the way. Peebee too, last she checked, was lost in some vault with an archeology team. The asari would be more amused than panicked, Sara thought. And Peebee was always more prone to pithy banter than any real, solid advice.

Drack? Surprisingly enough, he would have made a good shoulder to lean on. But his grave was much too far, and the dead could hardly impart their wisdom to the living. There was always Lexi and Dr. Carlyle, but having been immensely happy and proud for her when news of her engagement with Geoff spread, she doubt she’d find likely allies in the two, well-meaning doctors.

Suddenly she found herself missing SAM - the AI implant once inextricably woven into the very tissue of her nerves. But he too left her for better, brighter things, as everyone eventually did.

Her hands stayed quietly on her lap through it all. Sitting as she did in the atrium, pleasantly blending in with the very inanity of the bench and happy folk crowding around on such a beautiful and busy day, Sara found it rather difficult, actually, not to fidget. A trembling of her lip seemed to hint as much. That, and a well suppressed tear building up in the corner of her eye.

A ping notified her of a sudden change. Sara hurriedly fiddled for her omnitool, hoping Scott at least tried to call her back.

An email.

_To: Sara_  
_From: Geoffrey Richards  
_ _Commemoration is in an hour. Where are you?_

Sara didn’t really read the email - sparse as it was. All she needed to see was the question mark demanding of her something she didn’t really want to give. She shut it off before any sort of argument could sway her.

More and more civilians seemed to crowd out as high noon signalled the morning’s passing into lunch. Laughter now echoed in the main hall, and the Hyperion was abuzz with newfound life. How quickly time went by, forgetting the formative seconds that built up to it.

_Be somewhere else. Anywhere but here._

Another ping.

A call.

“Hello?”

“Sara?” Scott’s concern was more audible than her name. Static pervaded their channel, and even the pauses had a brush of white noise. “Sara, what’s going on? You called me like five times!”

The initial trembling soon devolved into fingers winding and curling tightly in a ball. A scrunched fist on her lap. Sara sucked in and bit her lip. She tilted her chin upward up so as to keep withheld tears from falling as she emphatically nodded her head.

“Hello? Sara?” The line was threatening to cut.

She inhaled a sharp breath, finally relenting with the allowance of a single tear to drop from large, unbelieving eyes. “It’s so good to hear from you little brother.” She sniffled through the words, a mistake she didn’t really want to make.

“Sara are you-... are you crying?!”

“What?! No!” She wiped her eyes and sniffed again. Around her, intermittent eyes from the amorphous crowd of people began to notice too. The jury was out. She was indeed crying.

“What’s wrong? Tell me!”

The urgency was slightly intimidating, if Sara had to be honest. She remembered a time when Scott wasn’t always in such a rush, and when he would gently call to her in their hour of need. “Is there something wrong with wanting to talk to my baby brother?”

A radio silence told her he didn’t really buy it.

“Did Tann yell at you?”

“What?! No-”

“Do you owe money?”

“Of course not! I-”

“Is it Geoff? Did you two fight?”

It was so typical of Scott to never listen. Not a word. But still he was always the one who could come closest to understanding a little of what had been plaguing his sister through all these years. “Scott, listen to me,” she commanded. A more stern voice suddenly took over. “I just… I just wanted to ask how you were doing.”

Another pregnant pause followed. This time, she could hear him breathe with a nervous, almost quickened rhythm, even through the static of their omnitools. No doubt he was processing things; trying his best to maybe figure his elusive sister out. “I’m fine.”

“Good!” She almost laughed at how feigned her excitement was. “Where are you now?”

“We’re actually back in Heleus. Kadara, to be specific, and- … Hey, Sara, listen. If something happened, you’d tell me right?” Scott was pleading this time. Impatience could never stop him from worrying.

Again, Sara laughed off his concerns. “Scott, I’m your Ate. Listen to your Ate.” Her knuckles wiped at the watery beads pooling in the corner of her eyes. “I’m telling you. I’m fine,” she declared, smiling as if to an unconvinced audience. “Now, tell me. What brought you to Kadara?” There was an eagerness to her question that she didn’t quite expect. It was puzzling, to say the least.

“Well…” Scott hesitated as he let out a sigh. His exasperation was more than pronounced in it. “We needed something. It was for a mission, actually.”

“Oh?”

“I-... I really can’t tell you about it.”

Sara felt her heart crumble a little; like a withered flower quivering from the pressure of an unwitting yet nevertheless callous thumb. “I see.”

“I’m sorry, Sara.” But Scott was never one for protocol - least of it all when it came to his dear sister. “But you know, we came to Kadara, because we needed something a little special for it. It’s classified, and all that bullshit. But if you want…” He paused to listen in for her withheld breath. “Why don’t you come over? Let’s hang out. I have five days of shore leave, and I’m sure the crew would love to see you. SAM included. I just figured you’d be busy with wedding stuff, and all. I didn’t want to bother you.” A string of excuses erupted from his end of the line, which did not at all reach Sara. There was something latent in his reasons. It was palpable from the nervous ticks of his inflection, but neither of them were going to push it.

Her hand fell gently on her stomach. Somehow, sitting where she was in an almost Edenic slice of Meridian, the world itself was beginning to feel small. Something of a rush overtook her. The offer was a surprise, to be sure, but it came with the prospect of a tantalizing freefall - that sort of thing pregnant women like her shouldn’t partake in.

“I’d love to.”

* * *

Five years ago.

_“I heard the news. Are you alright?”_

_She ran an agitated hand through the knotted curls of her hair. The purple dye was running thin. Anemically pale._

_“Sara.”_

_“As fine as I can be.”_

_He sat by her side. The bed always sank when he put his weight in it._

_“I’m fine. I promise.”_

_He held her by her ear. The line of her jaw was soft in his palm. “You’re a bad liar.”_

_“And what does that make you?”_

_He laughed, at a loss for the unexpected snark. But there was something more important to discuss. “Stay with me.”_

_“Reyes…”_

_“You have everything you need here. A home, Dr. Nakomoto, your turian friend-”_

_“There’s nothing for me here. I… I’d just get in your way.”_

_He had no argument for that._

_“You can come with me.” This wasn’t the first time she made that offer._

_“And the Collective? I need to be here.”_

_The same circular reasoning. Sara opted for the other debate at hand._

_“It would look bad for the ex-Pathfinder to shack up with a smuggler. And, who knows what that might mean for you.” The word ‘you’ always took on different meanings when speaking with him._

_He scoffed. “Who cares about that?”_

_“I do.”_

_“And that’s it?”_

_“That’s it.”_

_He left the bed shortly thereafter._


	2. Chapter 2

_ Ten years ago _

“Diamond in the rough” would’ve been an apt phrase, Sara thought. A sheer curtain, perhaps made of scrapped up oilcloths used in docking bays, lined the gaping hole that would have constituted one of the room’s four walls. Yet what it lacked in structural integrity it more than made up for with breathtaking scenery. Below them the market place was rendered into a mesh of congealed embers of artificial light. Tall metallic spires jutted haplessly through the mountain. City lamps shone against the black sky like a chaotic string of stars, lost yet hovering in a neon haze. Sure, it was dilapidated, a little run down, and clearly in dire need of dusting, but no one could argue the sweet perks of such a kingly view.

“Nice place,” she said with a smirk. Yet the sarcasm fell before the clear and awestruck echo of her words.

Behind her, Reyes stayed leaning against the door, arms crossed over his chest as he watched Sara take in the smallness of his humble abode. “It’s my safe house.” The contraction spared him from having to reveal too much. “ _ Was  _ his safe house” was the more accurate statement, but it wasn’t like the place lost its function in the ten months since he... well, never mind.

“ _ Oooh _ , fancy!” The revelation wasn’t lost on her. Her hands dug deep into the pockets of her leather jacket as she bit down on the smile threatening to erupt on her lips. A lightheaded feeling seemed to sway her body, and without really saying so, her wandering eyes shone with a beam of poorly suppressed gratitude. A safe house boasted no luxuries save for its secrecy – the last bastion for a man who wanted to hide, to disappear into the crevices of a growing and dangerous city. It was yet  _ another  _ secret, another moment of genuine vulnerability that made her feel a tad bit more special than before.

Sara paused before a makeshift bedside table, composed entirely of an emptied cargo box. Her finger swiped over its surface, revealing an ash-colored layer of dust. “What happened? Ran out of money for the cleaning lady?” She laughed at her own joke – a trait Reyes never found un-amusing. The self-satisfied leer that went with each suppressed-giggle could almost break his pride. It was too tempting to let a bit of his guardedness down just to share in her mirth.

“I wasn’t expecting any guests.” He stayed motionless in his spot, a little more reserved than he felt like being. But he found it adequate just  _ being there _ when this rare opportunity presented itself. Sara Ryder, with her garish violet hair, her chic leather jacket (unstressed and unminted), and this air of jovial  _ je ne sais quoi _ with which she ambled and paced about his forgotten old home. The scattered cloths, scrap metal, and fabric lining the floor didn’t waylay her dainty steps. Neither did the neglected holes and inexplicable sound of water leaking through the tinfoil roof repulse her in any way. She was circling and smiling, visibly enjoying some part of him he had long ago buried.

Finding the strewn about mattress on the floor, Sara lost no time plopping herself in a free fall against its worn-out springs. Her arms and legs splayed about the entire size of it, stretching and taking in what little comfort it could still offer. Turning her head slightly, she stared back at Reyes from where he remained. “Don’t worry,” she said. “You should’ve seen my brother’s room when we were kids.” A coy smile followed, and for a moment she felt a warmth rise to her cheeks. She hadn’t felt so giddy in so long. And it was... quite nice.

“Somehow that wasn’t as comforting as I hoped,” he fired back. The distance from the door to Sara wasn’t much. He found himself next to her soon enough. Sitting by her side, one leg outstretched and one knee pushed back.

For a while they didn’t say anything. The dimming lights grayed out their stalemate of words, having finally run out of witty things to say. Sara just lay there staring back. She contentedly searched the lines of his face, the hardening ridges along his brows while his lopsided grin faded away, as if he seemed to forget that he was supposed act carefree and happy in that very moment.

Reyes let a hand wander to her ear, feeling underneath the uncouth waves of hair lined over her cheeks. It was obvious how Sara had easily lost track of the topic, quaint as it was. The shimmer in her eyes betrayed the rather different course her thoughts took. He circled a thumb over her temple, wondering why she seemed to breathe in short, withheld bursts; why her pupils widened into black pools as he hovered over her. He had known then that she was quite taken with him. If he allowed himself the admission, he would even daresay she was in love. But at that moment, he was feeling a bit drunk, and he didn’t trust himself to make any  _ real  _ assessment of the situation.

“Reyes,” she said in a half whisper. Her fingers whispered down the bridge of his nose, tracing a wayward line down to the cupid’s bow of his lip. “I’ll never forget tonight.” Something in the way her hand reached for  _ him _ , feeling roughened lines of his jaw, spoke more words than she gave.

“I know,” he answered, smiling in that debonair way of his.

She reached up to kiss him, brushing her lip against his - just enough to touch noses. Yet there was more hesitation than before, a slight pull before they could deepen it. Sara shifted so she sat up in front of him. Their faces were mere breaths apart, and their eyes fluttered to a hazy close. Reyes could feel the motions of her muscles as she swallowed the knotted tension building in her throat. A soft exhalation - feathery against his skin.

“Are you sure?”

All she gave was a curt nod, confident in a decision that was made just hours before when she confessed just how much he meant to her.  _ You’re someone to me _ , she had said and he would always be.

 

* * *

_ Present _

The past ten years haven’t been unkind to Reyes Vidal. Completely on the looks department, he managed well into his late thirties almost unscathed, save for crow’s feet lining the darkened corners of his very tired eyes. The rather unhealthy habit of drinking (despite the on-the-job caveat of “three drinks max”) filled his bones and muscles with a layer of softness so becoming of a man who finally learned the meaning of a  _ comfortable  _ life. 

But comfort always had a price. The once relaxed and seedy feel of his lounge room had become a formidable office of a higher order. Decorative wood panels gave the walls an antiquated yet ostentatious feel. Instead of a wall-hugging couch, the room now boasted a flat, bulwark of oak for a desk (the only one carried over from the Milky Way), and an imposing chair behind it to serve as an officiant’s throne. A generous mini-bar populated the space behind him, and the low amber lighting of the smoky lamps cast chiaroscuro contrasts in the room’s low hanging shadows. Tartarus now constituted a proper base, or command center of sorts. Pleasure and business mixed freely, and so did all the liquors and spirits wherein Kadara’s denizens drowned both their money and their troubles.

“What?” he asked, irritated as he answered an unexpected call from his omni-tool. His hand circled around a pristine glass of brandy. 

“Oh I miss you  _ too  _ honey,” answered the voice. Even from the other end of the line, the rather palpable sarcasm made his eye-rolling tone audible to the curmudgeonly Charlatan.

It was barely eleven in the morning. Reyes hadn’t expected the obligatory call for affection so soon. “I’m a little busy.” He instinctively shuffled around a data pad and other nondescript objects littering his desk, as if to play at the very business he feigned. “Can I call you back?”

The voice on the other end clamored with a bemused chuckle. “You’re sweet, Reyes. Anyway...” He paused, and a clinking of ice in glass could be heard. “Special offer just came up. Missing person. Nexus wants to pay  _ big  _ money-...”

“Then they should call Security. We deal with information not… lost children.” Reyes didn’t mean for the interruption to be  _ too _ curt, but frankly he was starting to have a headache. And it was too early in the day to start having headaches.

“Well then it’s right up your alley,” he countered. “ Nexus is looking to reel in a big fish: Sarianna Ryder. You might have heard of her?”

It only took a split second for Reyes to scratch through the leather of his arm chair. He wasn’t quite sure he heard right. “Wait-”

“Yeah you heard  _ right _ , alright. Who’d’ve  _ thunk _ ?” Even through the static-filled comms of their omni-tool, Reyes could hear him pause to breathe through a cigarette. The click of a lighter was never too quiet, after all. “Either way, they have the people. What they don’t have is information.”

Reyes kept to his silence, riddled as it was. Better to gather information than to squander it with obvious tells. It was the first lesson he learned, and it didn’t apply any less where his love life (however far down in history) was concerned. 

“Higher ups with the Initiative sent out a distress call, asking anyone to report sightings, whereabouts, et cetera!” He exclaimed in songlike fashion. “Figured we could take the jump on everyone else, you know? We  _ do  _ have the resources to check every port in Heleus as is.”

Somehow the other man doubted that. Sure enough the infrastructure was in place for a cluster-wide womanhunt, but the issue wasn’t with the resources. It was with the reasons. And if Reyes knew anything about Initiative, it was that they  _ always  _ had their reasons. “How long has she been missing?”

“Well, on the  _ Nexus _ , it has been twelve hours, but you know how it is. We experience time relatively through dark space,  _ et cetera, et cetera _ .”

Reyes had half a mind to stop him and his nonsensical penchant for Latinate phrases. So he cleared his throat in a feeble attempt to preemptively steer away potential digressions. “That doesn’t sound right.” Already, his part-time-lover, part-time colleague made a grunt of sheer vehemence at being corrected. But the distraction proved useful, after all, as it gave Kadara’s King some time to ponder. For one, his agents had been in contact with the new Pathfinder, Scott Ryder, for quite some time now. Something told Reyes that, in the span of twelve hours, the doting brother would already be turning over every rock floating in the galaxy just to find her. And yet he wasn’t. “Who’s looking?”

“What?” His partner spat out his puzzled frustration. 

“I said,  _ who’s looking _ ? Who sent out the distress call?”

Something of a shrug made itself heard through the line. “Signed off as the Initiative.”

“Get specifics.” Reyes reclined on his chair with an air of contemplation.

“Why? Think something’s off?” Hostilities resided for the moment. If there was anything the two men had in common, it was a predilection for mysteries and the lucrative opportunities that came with them. Another exhalation made itself heard through the line. Reyes figured it was right about the same time his cigarette burnt itself out.

“ _ If  _ I were a betting man, which I am,” he paused to stare into the light refracted through the glass of brandy swirling in his hand, “I would say Sara Ryder isn’t missing.”

“What? You think she’s in trouble with them?”

Honestly, Reyes wouldn’t put it past her. Whatever ‘good girl’ act she was capable of was mere smokescreen as far as he was concerned. “I’ll call you back when I have more to go on. For now, I’ll keep an eye on her brother.”

“Sounds good,” he answered, but his words were slightly garbled. From his end, Reyes figured a new cigarette barring the corner of one’s mouth could do that. Nevertheless, the voice persisted. “Say, Reyes?”

“What?”

“Don’t you think it’s funny?”

He sighed through gritted teeth. “What’s funny?” His gloved hand combed through in mild impatience.

“You ex-girlfriend. Missing. On the day of her commemoration ceremony. And…”

Reyes always resented his partner’s penchant for highly charged and withheld pauses. “And?”

“Well,” he said with a bit of a laughter. “Her brother’s here.” Of course, neither men were the type to dismiss coincidences - however unlikely they were. 

The more jaded charlatan didn’t like the insinuation. “What? Are you the jealous type now?”

The other end rang with more drawn-out laughter. “No. Not if you give me reason to be.”

The call ended with a droning note, much too abrupt given the lackadaisical start. Still, Reyes found the brusqueness more flattering than it was cause for concern. Suspicions of foul play were well-founded in terms of the whole drama of the disappearance. But for  _ him _ ? Reasons to be jealous? Having anything beyond a financial if not platonic investment in finding Sara was incredulous, at best. Why should  _ he _ , after all these years, feel anything more? To pine like some long lost lover whiling unrequited years away was a poor waste of time, and Reyes didn’t like to waste anything, really. When it ended, they both agreed to it. They were adults about it, and they remained so thereafter.

Without further preponderance, his fingers swiped across the holographic interface of his omnitool.

_ Lynx, _

_ Notify me of every passenger shuttle leaving and entering the port. Get a hold of the manifests and passenger lists.  _

_ C _

 

* * *

 

Waiting at Kralla’s Song was surreal, to say the least. Umi wasn’t even there. A curmudgeon old Krogan, more silent than a menacing stone, handled the drinks from behind the bar. “No thank you,” Sara said as she waved a hand in polite refusal. The Krogan merely shrugged. “Where’s Umi?” She leaned forward with an air of timidity. Lycra-sleeved elbows hesitated over the wooden panel’s questionable stickiness.

“Upstairs.” Curt and direct. It was  _ so  _ like Umi to hire someone like him.

“There’s an upstairs?” She raised an eyebrow at the rather underhanded news of the bar’s success through the years. Again he shrugged in answer. Looking around, Sara no such stairs or access to an “upstairs.” She wondered just how literal he was being.

The bar itself was sparsely populated. What must have been the new local drunk made a bed for himself on the greasy floor in a shadowy corner. Not even the neon strobe lights could rouse him from unconscious slumber. In the other direction, the sun had scarcely begun to set. It gleamed over the horizon in a fire-like glow. The din of more newcomers shuffling about and glasses clinking in shared resignation drowned out the still faint beat of what would be the evening’s playlist. Something of a depression - bleak as it were - lingered over the denizens, and it seemed almost everyone, save Sara, found their answers at the bottom of a beer-ringed glass. 

It was awkward trying to sit patiently and pretty. She couldn’t even drink to while the minutes away. She fidgeted to check the time on her omnitool. 19:24. Less than thirty-minutes, and Scott should arrive. Then again, her brother was never much of an early bird, much less one that arrived on time. Something of a dread-filled sigh rolled through her shoulders just thinking of the having to wait through it all completely sober. 

“Say,” the Krogan barkeep finally piped in. “You look kinda familiar.”

Sara hated that sort of start. Depending on who he really was, he would’ve known her when her skin had a more sun kissed hue; when her once short, wavy tresses glowed a vibrant violet - as bright as merry youth. He might have known her when she was at the fore of each and every frontier; at the threshold of each and every boundary. Her name might have sounded to him like the name of a constellation, writ in the stars for greater things. 

Alternatively, he might have seen her on vid adaptations, on interviews, or on documentaries. The years faded her purple hair in exchange for the more natural, darker brown. Years spent in clinics and rehabilitation centers traded out her tawny skin for a paler complexion. Darker circles sank her once perky, almond shaped eyes. Yet even those more mundane years saw more polished versions arm-in-arm with the new premier-elect, Geoffrey Richards. She was, after all, his trophy wife-to-be, or so Peebee once put it. The Krogan might have seen her in some campaign rally or two.

“I’m sorry,” she began, “I’m new here. You can’t possibly know me.”

Something in the Krogan’s complacent shrug told her that he had lived enough years to know when someone was lying to his face. But at the same time, he had lived enough years to not really give a shit. “If you say so.”

It was hard for Sara  _ not  _ to think of the memory that is so stubbornly salient in her mind. Every foot clambering through the door threatened to echo the traipse of a suave smuggler casually asking her if she had been waiting for someone. Well over ten years later, she wasn’t sure what she was expecting beyond her twin’s late arrival, but something of the fluttering beating of her heart and the jitteriness with which she tapped her nails on the bar’s counter spoke of an unbidden excitement. She would be lying if the prospect of seeing Reyes again didn’t cross her mind when, just half a day before, she waited furtively in line for the next cargo transport to Kadara. Of course she bore no desire to rekindle something long ago smothered by age and maturity. It was just that seeing him again had a chimerical flair of forgetting - the impossible chance to forget her situation altogether. 

“Well, well!” A familiar voice echoed behind her. Sara spun around to meet the newcomer. “If it isn't the Pathfinder!” Keema Dorghum sauntered down the steps of Kralla’s Song towards the woman in question. 

“Keema?! What are you-” Sara froze in her spot, a little flustered with meeting the unexpected. “Shouldn't you be-?” Of all the people Sara thought she would meet, the figurehead queen of Kadara was further down the list. The moment Keema approached the bar, the nameless bartender slammed two filled glasses of whiskey onto the counter. The liquid swilled the already mired surface. “I’m … not exactly Pathfinder anymore.” Sara inched to the side to make room as the Angaran ambassador cozied next to her. 

“Oh hush,” Keema rejoined playfully. “A soldier returned home doesn’t stop being at war.” Something of a subtle half grin quirked up her lips. “Some things never change, no matter our say in it,” she added with an air of seasoned wisdom. She gracefully took to one of the drinks sitting before them and sipped with delicate restraint. Her eyes never once left Sara. “Please,” she said afterwards. “Drinks on me.”

Looking around, Sara noticed the abrupt silence of a palpably less populated room. “No thank you,” she said meekly. But the flash of a grimace on Keema’s face had her scrambling for excuses. “Normally I would, but I’d rather keep a clear head,” she offered instead. Something of an apologetic timidity marked her words - one that, contrary to the Angaran’s previous adage - betrayed the things that  _ did  _ change in Sarianna Ryder. 

Keema paid no heed to the excuse save for a bemused bob of her head. “Don’t look so surprised, darling. It’s very… unsettling.” 

A tinge of a blush reddened Sara’s cheeks. “I’m sorry I-”

“Word is,” Keema cut in, “your brother’s already on his way from Ditaeon. Quite a rush you put him through.” She punctuated the sentence with another sip from her drink. There was no mistaking the rather intriguing gleam in her eye - a sure sign that she was scrutinizing the ex-Pathfinder in lieu of an interrogation.

To the comment, Sara said nothing. She wrapped a hand around the cool metal glass waiting idly in front of her, circling and twisting her wrist until the liquor swirled in an amber haze. Her eyes followed the spiral as the air around them seemed to thicken.

“Beautiful!” Keema exclaimed. Her hands dove for Sara’s wedding ring, pulling at her limb despite the other woman’s reflexive attempt to withdraw. Her fingers dithered about the rough edges of the squared diamond, pulling it every which way so as to test the sparkle of the bar’s refracted neon lights against the rock. “I wonder what mineral this is…”

“What are you doing here, Keema?” The question came as a surprise to both of them. Sara, who was initially flummoxed by the Angaran’s inexplicable presence, had blurted out a long-simmering question. She was there to meet Scott and no one else. She took pains to disable tracking and triangulation via omnitool, and she even bothered faking a name to get off of Meridian. True enough she didn’t put up with the tedium of a disguise, but she doubted things could escalate so quickly…

Keema, on the other hand, flashed an instant of a smile - fleeting as it was. “You’re an old friend. I  _ had  _ to make sure you were well taken care of.”

Sara motioned to speak but stopped short with the mere part of her lip. Something told her that any further questioning - any attempt to really learn how quickly Keema learned of her arrival - would’ve been waylaid by unsubtle deflection. She instead fixed her eyes on her own drink, focusing on the trail of a whirlpool frothing about inside her glass. For her part Keema left Sara to her own contemplative silence, content to merely watch from the cusps of her attention. Moment of uneasy silence filled the gaps between.

“Might I suggest something, Pathfinder?” Keema finally broke the silence, but it was more out of a sense of haste than discomfort.

The ex-Pathfinder glanced up at her from her drink. “Of course.”

“If you don’t want to be found,” she began as her lips curled upward in a teasingly mischievous manner, “I suggest leaving Kadara Port. It’s a little too obvious.” The human woman’s spine straightened with newfound alertness. But Keema leaned in forward as if to continue uninterrupted. “That is, of course,  _ if  _ you don’t want to be found.”

If Sara were to say anything, that critical moment in between the conclusion of her impromptu meeting with Keema and the seconds with which she hastily escaped as Scott Ryder entered the building would’ve been the moment to do it. But instead, Sara gulped down nervous words knotted into a ball at the base of her throat. And Keema, who was nowhere near finished, wordlessly waved her hand followed by a slight bow of her head. From across the bar, she turned to call out to the fazed woman, “We’ll see each other again, I’m sure.” 

With those words, Scott made his entrance, unaware and rather shocked at finding Keema so close to him. At the bar, Sara watched them exchange words - words too far for her ears to catch. So she busied herself with swirling her drink about, weighing pensively the advice the Angaran ambassador had so cryptically left her. 

Either way, she learned two things just from the spontaneous visit. Firstly, things never change. However different her roles were for the Initiative, Sara would always be Pathfinder to others - a sort of familiar face that survived the ravages of time. Secondly, there was the dawning realization that her rather unplanned visit to Kadara, at the quick behest of her brother, was more significant a decision than she realized. It was clear Reyes now knew she was here, and it was doubly clear that maybe she knew all along he would’ve found her sooner rather than later. 


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Scott and Sara reunite

Scott leaned back against his seat, in visible anticipation of the news she refused to say. By then they had relocated to a more discreet corner of the seedy bar. Far from curious ears yet close enough to the open-air awning. He noticed how his sister looked askance at the view, watching with a curl of her lip at the bright vermillion glare in the horizon before them. She seemed preoccupied then as she tapped her thumbs on her knuckles. Her clear brown eyes remained entranced, watching for something in the sunset. But what? The Pathfinder crossed his arms over his chest and cleared his throat. The grunt of a cough should be enough to get her attention.

“Oh!” Sarianna’s shoulders shook as if in a start, her gaze snapping back from the imagined scene playing out in the balcony. “Sorry,” she mumbled, smiling sheepishly. She pulled a few loose strands of hair (brown now, no longer fun and colored as she used to insist in their youth) back behind her ear. The noise around them kept her from saying anything further. Loud clanks here and an uproarious chortle there were enough to stymie her timorous efforts.

Scott raised a quizzical brow, but he didn’t feel the need to say much. Seeing how _nervous_ she was just to be there and to sit, he couldn’t help but worry that a misplaced word from _him_ would be enough to topple her over. It had been nearly six months since they last saw each other, and already she had grown frail – anemic, even. The pallor of her skin and the faint traces of bleach in her hair made his sister look somewhat like a wraith. It didn’t help that she now hunched her back and scrunched her shoulders so. He, on the other hand, was clad still in Initiative-issued armor with a seemingly offensive tan to brag of his brazen adventures. They were twins, but he looked and felt astonishingly younger and more … _alive_.

“How’s SAM?” she asked. Her head was low, but her eyes remained shaky and limpid. He could see, from his side of things, that it hurt her to even ask that question.

“I’m well, Sara. Thank you.”

Scott’s omni-tool glowed, the speaker granting her the reprieve of familiarity. He dodged his sister’s look and shifted around his seat.

Sara herself didn’t mind. She kept leaning on the table in a lackadaisical manner, half a smile peering out from her stony expression. “That’s good,” she murmured. A soft laughter rolled from the sound. Quiet and mousy.

“Yeah, he’s well _enough_ ,” he jabbed, somewhat unexpectedly. Scott suppressed half a second of his own muted surprise, pressing on now that he had an in. “Some days I think SAM has half a mind to quit.” His sister’s concession of a smile was infectious, and in a moment, he caught himself trying – whatever good it did – to ease the tightly wound nerves straining her. “Just the other day he tried to tell me… _me –”_ he paused to take a sip of his drink – “how one ‘properly repairs the Nomad’s accelerator.’” He feigned exasperation and rolled his eyes.

“Forgive me,” SAM cut in. The omni-tool reverberated from his wrist. “I am still used to a more patient and attentive Pathfinder.”

“Hey!” he chided. “Watch it buddy. No need to flatter her!”

The twins giggled, shaking their head at the nonsensical argument between the two. And it worked, or so Scott hoped. The atmosphere felt _at least_ a tiny bit warmer. The same sheepish smile that was on her face just seconds before now wore on him like a mask. Even in their fleeting moments of mirth, he couldn’t help but let slip a subtle frown. Sara was beginning to look better, yes, but he still remembered the shaky voice that pleaded for his attention just twelve hours ago.

Their merriment whittled down into silence. Soon the wall of noise from the bar around them crept back into the crooks and crannies of their little corner. The familiarity was good, Scott noted, but the dimming lights of the sunset signaled that futility of such efforts. He shifted in his seat, this time to lean closer on the table.

“I saw you were talking with Keema,” he started again. He kept up a shamefaced grin, somewhat hard-pressed to pry information so relentlessly.

Sarianna said nothing. Her neck tilted to the side as she evaded his gaze for the millionth time.

“You must have been happy to see her,” he persisted. The smile of his started to dissipate, growing more and more timid with each second of her silence. “It’s been years.”

Still, she said nothing in return. Her forefinger now toyed with a ring of sticky water on the table. It gleamed a golden glow on the lacquered table, mired by the motions of her hand.

Scott noticed in a stolen glance that Sara hadn’t touched her drink _,_ the same pristine glass the Angaran diplomat had ordered for her. He quirked his brow in quiet determination, keeping still and steadfast as he made for another attempt.

“He’s been asking me about you, y’know.”

He could see her ears perk up, and the slow ascent of her chin as she raised her eyes – ever so slightly.

“I haven’t been to Kadara much, but the few times I’m here…” His voice faltered, checking for her own attention. Though she remained busy with her fidgeting, he could see – with the way she leaned on one side, her head slightly raised from before – that she was listening. “He asks about you.”

An unbearable pause took hold of the conversation. Sara’s hands froze, as if stuck in their motion. The small hint of a frown that had crept on her face before returned, this time more wrenched. It took Scott a few moments more until he noticed the trembling of her shoulders.

“Good,” she whispered. “You should tell him, ‘I’m good.’”

Scott watched as her eyes bore into the wood of their table. It looked as if she was squinting, focusing with an effortful strain against the racket of a darkening evening. 

“Tell him…” She then looked up in a sudden start, as half frightened by the mere impulse that had seized her. “Tell him I hope he’s good too.”

No words followed the somewhat tortured confessional of what he had just heard. Instead his sister merely returned to her nerve-wracked task of tracing lines against the icy water on the table. A temptation sprung, welling in Scott’s throat as he debated in the space of a second whether he should say it. “You should tell him yourself,” he quickly chimed. “He’d be happy to see you.”

Much to his surprise, Sara scoffed. “I don’t think so,” she said, half smiling. Something airy trailed her voice, flitting and whimsical. A self-contented tone carried with her words. “I came here to see _you_ ,” she said.

Yet even with that change of subject, she retreated once more into her taciturn shell. For his part, Scott struggled, picked as he was with a slight, anxious concern over his sister’s erratic gestures.

“Why _are_ you here?”

The question erupted from him, more bluntly than he intended. He looked at her with an uncomfortable impatience, pressing with his gaze for a more fruitful and to-the-point answer. Scott didn’t notice how far to the edge of his seat he had moved, leaning ever closer on the table as if to catch the whisper of her secret.

Her brown eyes were stock still. The black of her pupils deepened into a black pool, inviting and frightening in her stillness.

“I’m pregnant,” she said.

And the din of the bar – the clatter of broken glass, the ceaseless chatter, the thumping music that heralded the night – fell over them and swept up the weight of her sounds. Scott heard and felt nothing save the crash of a wave, and a soft, tantalizing ringing that went away as quickly as it came.

“That’s -…”

“Geoff can’t know,” she added rashly. “He can’t know.”

Scott saw in her paleness a quivering fear that had seized her voice and her eyes. Everything felt belated, each second cascading with each passed moment. He couldn’t even feel his fingers. He didn’t notice until he felt the tightened grip of his sister’s hands around his. It was old, but he remembered it – the desperate grip of a woman who wanted him to safeguard such a delicate, cherished secret.

It was scary how scared _she_ was, as if her life (and another’s) was at stake. He felt his stomach drop, and his heart rammed against his chest in the panic of the moment. _Why_ was she so scared? It was a question he wanted to put to her, to glean whatever he could in the chaos of this haphazard, improvised visit. But she held onto him with that quiet desperation, screaming wordlessly about the pain and danger she was in. Scott knew his twin sister well, and even if _she_ herself didn’t or couldn’t know the answers, the pieces were crashing into place. Suddenly, the raucous babble around them seemed less encroaching. He straightened his spine, alert to the movements and shadows stalking over them.

“Sara, people have seen you here,” Scott mumbled. “Geoff knows you’re here by now.”

She gripped his hand tighter. And though she wore no gloves, and he wore polymer-laden gauntlets, he could feel air constrict about his veins. In a way, something in her eyes glimmered with relief, pleased that her brother didn’t ask further questions. But the hint of warning in his voice made her fret worse than ever. Her shoulders were shaking, and her breathing seemed troubled.

“Then help me,” she pleaded. “Take me where he can’t find me.”

Scott’s eyes fell on her hands, the way tremors seized her wrists. A sunken feeling stole words from his mouth, and his own hold of her began to loosen. A sorry, crestfallen look… it was all he could muster before a sigh fell from his lips. “Sara-…” he said, wanting to say more. But he stopped short. A small drop of regret was all it took to set off the panic in his eyes – the apologetic and frenzied worry that he failed her before he even knew that he could.

Sara saw all this, saw all the tumult that shook her brother so. She let go of his hand, slowly, lips parted as his own tacit confession dawned on her. “You already told him…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am SO sorry for this long overdue, long ago late update. I promise I will take this up again... and soon! Right now, I only have a short update to bridge over the stuff, but hopefully it's a refresher on the plot. As always, comments and feedback are MUCH appreciated!

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! You can always find me on tumblr @pathfindersemail


End file.
